Dear Friends,
This week teams from Marine Reach Medical and Marine Reach
Training are preparing to fly to Vanuatu for a number of targeted outreach
opportunities. Anticipation is high as
we enter this tiny nation of only 250,000 people spread across 83 islands,
covering some 650 nautical miles. As
always the island people are so loving and appreciative of every gift and act
of service we bring. Yes, outreaches have continued these three years without a
ship. However, NOW that we have the new
ship, M/V PACIFIC HOPE, we look forward to 2014 and extending our impact
bringing more people, resources, and services.
During the months of
October and November, these land-based teams will be performing dental work,
optometry examinations, ophthalmology surgeries as well as screening for future
eye operations. Students from our
Discipleship School (DTS) will assist the medical teams on Tanna Island. Our students will also help with ongoing
construction and ministry at the newest YWAM base outside Port Vila (V2Life Base) and share
the love of Christ everywhere they go.
Advance work teams will be assessing locations for future medical,
educational, and community development projects. It is with God’s love that we enter this
nation and spread out over two specific islands.
Back in Tauranga, the refit work has begun in earnest aboard
the PACIFIC HOPE. We have ‘gutted’ the
area for the future medical clinic and plans are being made for the next steps
to get the Pacific Hope ready for service in the islands. Not only the Clinic
area needs work, but the galley and mess hall, CO2 room which affords fire
protection in the unlikely event of an emergency, and last but certainly not
least, our sewage system needs upgrading!
As volunteers come, bringing their skills to this
multi-faceted labour of love, it is a very moving time to watch the next
chapter of the Pacific Hope’s story unfold.
It is a reminder of the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah when a call went
out to the people to come, bringing their gifts and talents to rebuild the
Temple in Jerusalem. The response was so
overwhelming that Nehemiah had to tell the people to wait....even stop. Oh, that we would have such a grass-roots
response that we would be concerned with scheduling everyone in to help, and
organizing the gifts they bring. We hunger
for the presence and the glory of the Lord to fill this ship so that everyone
who comes in contact with the ship, its crew and the vision of this ship will
know there is something different about this “God Ship.”
We know there will be challenges and sacrifices in the days
ahead, and we also acknowledge that God has launched us on a journey of faith
and perseverance...ever aware of the Lord being concerned for the character and
Christ-like-ness He builds in us. Daily
we must remind ourselves of Hebrews 11:1:
Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
I would like to thank you for your
generous support and faithfulness in helping us acquire this new vessel to the
Islands, the Pacific Hope. Would you respond to
this Nehemiah call and help us begin the journey of transformation. Let it start in our hearts…let us be assured
that this hope we carry will produce not only medical results, but also fruit
of eternal value.
If you are able we invite you to come to
Tauranga, visit the Pacific Hope, and be part of the journey of rebuilding our
(YOUR) ship and sharing her with God’s people in the islands.
In His Majesty’s Navy,
Capt Jesse
Misa
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